Well, after about 48 hours my temperature is now back in the 'safe' zone and I am starting to feel mildly more human.  A heavy cold, long term effects of St Eroid's sleep deprivation and the delights of chemically induced menopausal symptoms (I could write a book on hot flushes and night sweats!) combine to leave me feeling pretty ropey, but I'm definitely on the mend.

On Friday at a scheduled hospital visit (before the extra unplanned one!) I was told there is some online video stuff with the plastic surgeon who will be redesigning me in a few weeks.  Eventually I found it here. I am very fortunate that my breast surgeon is one of the top ones in Scotland (he trains lots of others) and my plastic surgeon one of the best in Britain.

I also happened across this online diary of a Radio Cumbria reporter who is currently on a not dissimilar track.  Although everyone's experience is unique and I seem to have got off more easily with side effects, I found a lot of resonance - note especially the St Eroid effect that no literature or leaflet I've found admits!  I was also struck that, like me, she wanted some sort of 'before' photos - albeit I was more bothered about photos with hair whilst she wanted photos with breasts!  Good minister person that I am, my photos were all fully clothed.

So, I splash on through this puddle and on towards a forest that looks a little less dark than it did a while ago.

Well today turned out not as expected... all afternoon and part of the early evening spent at the local hospital having more blood tests, another ECG and a chest X-ray all because my temperature hit the 'danger' level of 38C.  A lot of time spent sat on a trolley feeling generally ropey before they sent me home with high dose antibiotics.  It's 36 years since I last had any antibiotics so that'll be interesting!

Anyway, they are happy that all should be well and there is no nasty infection lurking somewhere.

I have decided this constitutes a muddy puddle - more annoying than anything else, necessitating some action to overcome it but all being well soon forgotten.

So, gentle readers, please don't panic and please don't try to call me as I'll be in bed resting for a day or two.  Which may make this bit of blogland a little quieter.

Yesterday's Bible reading was the beginning of Hebrews 7.  I must have been meant to focus on this because it was the PAYG meditation too.

A reminder of the importance of living in the present, not the past, not the future... "Today, if you hear God's voice...."  and "while it is called Today..."

Today I have a cold - bah!  This meant I had to go to my GP and have blood tests to ensure I can fight it off and that it isn't something nasty.  (Everything seemed to be fine, cold notwithstanding)

Today I have to stay home, keep warm and monitor my temperature just in case...

Today has enough joys and sorrows of its own... and puts both yesterday and tomorrow into proper perspective.

Yesterday's Bible reading was from the start of Hebrews 2:

"We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard..."

Every now and then I find myself drifting into skim reading my devotional Bible readings, especially if they are gospel passages I know well.  Periodically I try reading NT stuff in Greek - this has two obvious benefits, firstly it stops me losing what little Greek I have and secondly it forces me to read much more slowly.  Sometimes I try reading aloud (an advantage of living alone!) which again makes me read every word properly.  Occasionally I play with Lectio Divina type approaches. 

It was useful to be reminded, albeit in a slightly sideways fashion, of my tendency not to pay proper attention to what I have 'heard' thinking I already know what it says and missing the new insights that await.  I think this is one of the reasons I like group Bible study - the practice of reading aloud and reflecting together allows us to see new emphases or spot things we haven't spotted before.  It's also one of the bonuses of slogging through the Greek or using less familiar translations.

I know that in a few weeks I will need to pull myself up again, having drifted back to skim reading.  I suspect I am not alone and I wonder what strategies others use to try to overcome this tendency in their own devotional reading?

An interesting report from the EA to read online here.  I was especially interested in the statistical stuff which shows some interesting results (with the usual pinch of salt needed for any statisitical stuff) and the fact that under 25s are less likely to call themselves 'evangelical' than older people (and indeed that it is the oldest age group of respondents who were most likely to.... discuss!).  With significant numbers of evangelicals open to the potential for abortion, assisted suicide and homsosexual lifestyles, the old foot-stampy "it's wrong, end-of" positions are clearly not sustainable and a time has to come when those churches/people willing to engage with these issues and even, shock horror, change their views won't automatically be branded 'wishy washy liberals', 'backsliders' or 'heretics.'

Always useful for us to ask ourselves what is essential and what is negotiable about our faith.